Macromedia Taps VoIP For Breeze

The company updates its Breeze platform to compete with Microsoft,
WebEx and IBM.

Macromedia updated its Web conferencing
application with new voice over IP (VoIP) capabilities.

As part of Breeze 5's new VoIP plan, the platform now
includes a telephone gateway that companies can link to their existing
telephony bridges.

In addition to support for VoIP, Breeze 5 also includes the ability
to do on-demand video and real-time, multipoint video conferencing.

The
platform is designed to support large-scale events for up to 2,000
participants and includes a wizard-based directory, single
sign-on support through NTLM or other
custom-authentication technology. The platform comes with new APIs
and software development kits, so companies can customize
their applications.

The San Francisco-based company said its Breeze platform is
fast becoming a competitor to similar products from Microsoft , WebEx and IBM , because
it can run on any computer that supports Macromedia's Flash Player.

Macromedia estimates more than 500 million Internet users are able to
immediately use their upgraded Breeze product.

"With Macromedia Breeze 5, we're taking off the gloves and showing
the industry the way Web communications should be done," Macromedia CEO
Stephen Elop said in a statement. "Breeze 5 now has everything
organizations need to fully realize the benefits of accelerated and more
effective training, marketing, selling and enterprise conferencing."

To help facilitate the conference-call traffic, Macromedia said it
has partnered with Premiere Global Services out of
Atlanta.

The joint venture will let users place conference calls directly
within the Breeze meeting room and individually control the volume of
each caller or mute as needed. The service also lets users record both
audio and Web conferencing portions of a Breeze meeting, including
synchronized recording of the telephone audio conference. The streaming,
unified recording is then made available via a specified URL after the
meeting.

Macromedia said it also added better collaboration with customer
relationship management tools, such as Salesforce.com , so
that sales and marketing departments can use Breeze 5 to serve up Web
seminars and visual presentations as a way to get sales leads.

The company also added features in Breeze 5 to help training
professionals offer multi-course curriculum management, full-screen
video, enhanced tracking and reporting, and expanded question and quiz
types. Trainers can launch and track content created with such tools as
Macromedia Authorware 7, Macromedia Captivate, Macromedia Flash MX 2004
and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004.

"A small sized video or audio file will stream at about 100 kilobits
per second (kbps) while a full-sized file can stream at about 200 kbps
to 300 kbps, depending on how you customize the file for image quality,"
Tom Hale, general manager and senior vice president at Macromedia, told
internetnews.com.

Hale said the Breeze 5 upgrade and release was scheduled well before
Macromedia discussed plans to
be acquired by Adobe. The executive said the new and improved Breeze
platform is just one more reason why the two companies will be able to
take advantage of each other's technology.

The hosted version of Macromedia Breeze 5 is available now.
Macromedia said its licensed product will be available on May 31, but
should be competitively priced at or below the current Breeze license.

Hale said Macromedia is looking at several flexible-pricing options,
including large-capacity meeting rooms and unlimited use for named
users.

msinger@jupitermedia.com

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